1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automatic speech recognition and more specifically to implementing speech recognition on a mobile device.
2. Introduction
The present invention relates to the need for mobile devices to adequately handle the function of automatic speech recognition (ASR). ASR is useful for such simple services as calling phone numbers in response to a user stating “Call Office”. As the complexity increases for ASR services, the need for improved and expanded capabilities for ASR also increases. Most mobile devices such as cellphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as palmOne® products and Compaq's iPaq® operate (in general terms) in a client/server network where the mobile device is the “client” communicating via a wireless network with a server.
In implementing ASR-based services on mobile devices, it is sometimes necessary to embed the ASR capability directly on the device rather than to implement ASR on network-based computing resources. Scenarios where this may be necessary include those where one cannot assume a persistent network connection. In these scenarios, even if the service involves updating databases on network computers, it is necessary to obtain information through human-machine interaction conducted independently on the device. Then, once the network communication channel is restored, the updated information collected on the device can be synchronized with the network-based database.
There are many problems associated with implementing ASR on a resource-limited mobile device. These include limitations in memory, computational power, and battery life. These limitations make it impractical to implement procedures designed to configure the ASR system on the mobile device for a particular user, domain, environment or transducer. These procedures often require a great deal of memory and computation and are often difficult to implement using the fixed point processors that exist on mobile devices. There is a need in the art for a system and method for enabling improved ASR on a mobile device having intermittent communication with a wireless network.